JJ Brine was a speechwriter for Brent Scowcroft, former National Security Advisor under George W. Bush and now is the Crown Prince of Hell at Vector Gallery.
Courtesy Vector Gallery
A Primer
The life and times of JJ Brine is not a 101 course. If you are not familiar with the work of JJ Brine you may want to take some time to acclimate yourself to the world of Vector Gallery and specifically its founder/creator JJ Brine. Countless articles have been written about the Crown Prince of Hell at Vector Gallery in Los Angeles, formally of New York City, but most of the write-ups follow a pattern that centers around one of the many live events at the gallery which usually pantomimes some kind of religious ceremony such as a satanic mass. Those articles usually give a blow-by-blow recounting of the event while dribbling factoids about JJ Brine and give pithy commentary about what they make of Vector Gallery. This is not one of those articles. The best advice that I can give you before reading this article is to Google JJ Brine, and then expose your mind to the visceral assault of his art and imagery before returning here. Because this article assumes two things: First, that you have not heard of JJ Brine; Second, like me, you have not been to any of the live Vector Gallery events and have only experienced the art of Vector Gallery and JJ Brine through social media, Google etc.
1. Understanding Vector Gallery through the prism of standard fare
Aside from being a visual and performance artist, JJ Brine is a highly gifted bard of words and understands their effect on any audience. His mastery of language is such that he has created a dialect of English, which is, for those unfamiliar in the ways of Vector Gallery, tantamount to deciphering binary language without an understanding of basic mathematics.
This was my try at a down the line interview via email:
Ritchie: The Wall Street Journal said you have an “often-confusing background.” You used to work for former national security advisor, Brent Scowcroft, and now run Vector Gallery. Did you consider your time writing speeches an artistic endeavor? If so was that the beginning of your journey as an…I want to say artist, but I sense you are much more.
JJ: The WSJ cites confusion as a charmed, euphemistic way of bowing to its word count limitations, although the author could have written a few books about me given the scope of his investigative research. Where does art depart from the mere fact of existence in a body? Showing up yet again in the simulated spatial-temporality — especially in this particular body, of all places — seems artistic enough frankly. “But Eye[sic] digress” shall be inscribed once more on the Tomb of Christ — We All Wept once, but Jesus wept a hundred times more : Charmed Eye[sic] Am Insured. Yes, The Universe is also an art project — not the first and not the last. My time writing speeches for Scowcroft — among other tasks — is the earliest chapter of the narrative that has been made available for public consumption regarding my experience in this body. Reconnaissance is my regional dialect and sedition is my accent.
This first round of questioning sobered me to the reality that JJ’s artistic vision goes beyond the confines of the space that physically occupies Vector Gallery. His work flows into a consistent patchwork that bridge into all forms of expression, including language. This sobering revelation made me come to the conclusion that in order to tell the artistic story of JJ Brine I would have to blend and carefully nurture my straight forward approach to writing with his artistic dialect to come up with a genuine and coherent report on his art. Also, we would have to speak on the phone.
Courtesy Vector Gallery
“My mind on display” – JJ Brine
The subtle genius of Vector Gallery is it’s not really a gallery in a traditional sense. The word gallery may conjure up thoughts of separate works paired in familiar formats such as well-lit symmetric picture frames or visually partitioned areas where a work can exist apart from the rest of the gallery. None of this applies at Vector.
Even with the constraints of only being able to view Vector Gallery through the internet what comes across is a dazzling array of disparate metallic colors, symbols and images that overwhelms the eyes. At first, the imagery may be a lot to take in. But again, the process of understanding Vector Galley is acclimation, otherwise you may develop the bends.
According to JJ Brine, Vector gallery acts as one continuous piece of art. There is no individual piece that acts on its own. There is no autonomy for any one thing in the gallery, but rather the gallery itself is an autonomous work that is portable and is capable of shape shifting depending on who interprets it.
When I asked JJ about the gallery being a living organism, about it being his own mind on display he explained further:
“It’s also whoever encounters it, it’s their mind once they’ve seen it because they have to interpret it and that’s how I keep it alive. It’s imposing its imagery and imposing it’s suggestions on others people’s interpretations so it’s not just my mind. Once it’s been released into the mind of another then it’s being filtered through theirs.”
Because I had been over so much of the galleries imagery and studied so many pictures of both the New York and now Los Angeles galleries space I came to appreciate the thought of Vector gallery being a living organism that is able to adjust itself to any space it may occupy, be that a physical space or in the mind of a person taking in all neon charms it had to offer.
This brought me to my next question. How did JJ Brine arrive at the idea of Vector gallery?
“It comes from the same place, that other inaccessible subconscious place. I am informed of it as though receiving a text message in my head, from another dimension. That’s how the title came to me. When I first rented this space I was in a trance state. I can’t access some of my memories about the early installation period. I can access them but can’t explain them because I wasn’t thinking in language.”
He further explains.
“I wanted to make a temple to this belief system that was a sweeping integration into everything. There was no choice in the matter. I felt it was what I had to do.”
What adds to the psychological impact of Vector gallery comes from summoning things in the subconscious that may seem frightening or outside what might be considered a safe zone. This even applies to the motto on Vector galleries Facebook page: Satan is Change, Change is God.
Much of the religious imagery he uses references Satan. Look around long enough and you will easily find references such as “Satanic States of Vector.”
I asked him what does this all mean.
“You can take this to the most academic level or take it to the most visceral level, either one.”
I asked what it meant to him.
“Satan, being the adversary and the extent reality, being the regime. The adversary to the regime is the change then once the regime adopts this change then that change is exalted. And this is cyclical. This changes every moment. These things can be reconstituted; are the same in that they are substantiated by the other. That’s the process. I do believe that the devil is the one that tempts things to be as they are intrinsically and that is a change. This is an additive loop. And that’s the way things work and everything is happening at once. I mean that in time everything is happening at once. Everything is contemporaneous outside the simulation from the creation of all things to the end and that’s a loop.”
Vector Gallery is a satanic gallery and does hold a satanic mass on occasion, but looking beyond the lines of the page, so to speak, and you can find a consistent philosophy of birth and rebirth which follow the timeless cycles of destruction and then rebuild.
2. Lebanon, Haiti and the Prince Philip Movement in the island nation of Vanuatu
Assuming you have at least glanced at some of the work of JJ Brine and Vector Gallery, paired with some of the insight he has offered above you might now ask, what compels an artist to imagine into existence a space that is so contagious it can occupy the physical world as well as occupy and rearrange the imagination of those that view it?
“Lebanon is at the heart of my interests.” – JJ Brine
Courtesy Vector Gallery
The historic story of JJ Brine is every bit as compelling as his artistic highlights.
“Beirut changed my perspective on a lot of things, it woke them up. I lived there for two years and went back in December and January. Lebanon is at the heart of my interests.”
JJ Brine went to graduate school at The American University in Beirut for political studies. Given the array of religious symbols that dominate the tapestry of Vector Gallery I was hardly surprised that one of consistent themes in his work has an element of religion.
What did surprise me was that his time there was pivotal enough that it reset his outlook and birthed the early period of the artist that we now know.
“I found it (Lebanon) interesting and it systematized my mind about preexisting thoughts about religion. It’s on some level it’s the Lebanese people I’m centrally addressing.”
That was a revelation I was not expecting. The seeds of what we know as Vector Gallery are in some ways a communication to Lebanon.
Just as interesting as Lebanon was his time in Haiti and Vanuatu.
Can we talk about Haiti?
“I have been to Haiti a couple of times. I was going to see Max Beauvoir a friend of mine who died recently who was the supreme chief of Haitian Voodoo.”
Why Haiti?
“I went in 2012 and I went again in May (2015). It was right after Vanuatu, Tanna where I stayed with the Prince Philip Movement. Why did I go? I went for certain rituals and to exchange with the head of voodoo because I knew he was doing work that influenced a lot of people. And I knew he had that mouthpiece and that audience. And he was not just speaking to people but they were attuned to his thought process. I thought I would attune his though process to the Vectorian one. And we were mutually informative and we practiced a couple of very important rituals together on both occasions. The second time I stayed at his house for a number of days.”
The Prince Philip Movement is a group of people in the south pacific island nation of Vanuatu that believe that Prince Philip of the UK is a deity. Tanna is one of the most populous islands in the nation.
Max Beauvoir passed away September 12, 2015.
3. New York City to Los Angeles: What might be next for JJ Brine and Vector Gallery?
Finally there is the story of the future of Vector Gallery.
Courtesy Vector Galleries
This topic was originally off the record, but I was later allowed to put it on the record, which involves the future of Vector Gallery and JJ Brine.
During the course of our interactions, JJ Brine informed me that eventually the gallery would be moving again from Los Angeles to Washington D.C. for obvious reasons. When he told me this I guessed those obvious reasons would be something along the lines of a bigger impact by placing the gallery in the heart of the nation’s political machine, but naturally I was thinking too literally, too small-time.
JJ Brine’s reasons were much more ambitious.
Why DC next?
“To program the elections, to make my commentary on them.”
His answer made me think about what exactly he meant by this. Then I remembered the entire point of what we’ve been discussing about Vector Gallery, that we are talking less about an actual art gallery burdened with the earthly confines of what we saddle as art, and more of an organism that affects anyone that comes into contact with it. Thinking in those terms I have no doubt JJ Brine and Vector Gallery will accomplish anything it decides to do.
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